A Web of Days Not actual Title
by Eleanor Chambers
Summary: I'll go into deeper detail here later.
1. Prologue

There was fire everywhere, like water it lashed the sides of the once beautiful house and swallowed the petite bushes and small petunias that had been planted along the pathway. From within, the residents knew not what was happening, for they never expected something like this to happen to their pleasant and simple lives.  
  
The four innocent people were automatically plunged into a forest of despair by something too terrible to describe in detail. Something that had claimed the lives of too many people to date, and that would not stop killing until the day of it's death.  
  
Carina and Nicholas Chambers, the parents of two children, were awoken by a blood-curdling shriek coming from down the hallway of their small home in Scotland. Nicholas, who awoke first, automatically jumped out of bed.  
  
Terror rang through the hallway, as the tortured screams of a teen- aged girl continued to tear through the silence.  
  
But who could stop it? 14-year-old Beth was innocently sleeping in her room, enjoying the summer holiday off from her boarding school, when her life was terribly cut short by something more foul than anyone could imagine. She had awoken looking up into blood shot, glowing red eyes staring down at her, but was at once plunged into a screaming fit of pain as she felt a long piece of wood being shoved at her neck. A word was muttered, and the pain did not stop.  
  
Nicholas, running in to see what was the matter, stopped dead in his tracks, staring in horror as he watched his own daughter being murdered. He watched it all, from the very first series of words, until the flashing green light claimed her soul and took away her promising life.  
  
Then the feared 'piece of wood' was turned upon the father of the dead girl now lying motionless on her bed. And the life of he, too, was ripped from his body with a flash of green and the screams of his daughter still ringing through his ears, soul, and heart.  
  
But Nicholas was not the only one who had witnessed his daughter's death. Someone else had been present in the room, and had seen and watched in tearing agony the death of both his own sister, and father. Young 8-year- old Ryan Chambers, who shared a room with his sister, was automatically awoken by the screams emitting from her mouth. He saw a dark figure crouched menacingly over Beth's bed, pointing a long, skinny and dull piece of carved wood at her heart. Ryan knew what this was. He had grown up with it, but he didn't know why this person was using it so. He plunged under his bed as fast and as stealthily as possible, wanting more than anything to make it all stop. Seeing Beth's body go limp, and his father's form fall slowly and gracefully to the floor.  
  
Yet Carina Chambers and her son, Ryan, had lived. Carina had slept through the screams, unknowing of her husband getting up, and walking right into his own demise. She had woken up right after, hearing the faint crying and terrified whimpering of a little boy, sitting at the foot of her bed, his face in his knees.  
  
Carina listened as Ryan retold what he had saw in the room, and she at once leapt up, tears streaming down her face, and walked strait down the hall way to Beth's room.  
  
There on the bed lay Beth, un-moving and pale. But at her feet, crumpled in the doorway lay her husband. She fell to her knees, feeling that Sir Death too should have taken her.  
  
Ryan then disappeared. Carina went back into her bedroom to find it empty. No crying little boy on the floor, no nothing. She searched everywhere, anywhere, and every minute of the day. But she never found her son.  
  
She felt as if she had lost everything close to her. Everything that mattered, and for a long time, she wanted more than anything to have her life swept from her grasp, so she could join her husband and daughter. But that small voice in the back of her head told her not to give up. Not Yet. Ryan, in her mind, was dead. But still, she searched on.  
  
****************************  
  
Ryan had in fact, run away. He had scampered down the oft-treaded hallway of the house he had grown up in, taken his small shoes from the mat by the homely front door and left, whilst his mother wept. He ran as far away as he could, still crying, and still lost for words of what he had just seen.  
  
It wasn't long after that he was picked up by two police man the next morning and taken away to an orphanage, where the deaths still lingered in his mind, never to be rid of.  
  
But Carina still searches, never giving up, and never forgetting that horrible night where she lost everything. 


	2. Chapter 1

The early dawn of the morning scratched its way through the musty curtains of a young girls room. The summer light had found it's way to her bed, and was dancing before her eyes, taunting her to open them. She retaliated, and slept on, as a small figure of a boy came pelting into her room, running silently across the wooden floor to the window. He grasped the curtains with his small hands and flung them open, letting the sunlight flood in, then running back out again, snickering under his breath.  
  
Yawning, 11-year-old Ella opened her eyes angrily and stared at the window. Someone must have just barely opened the curtains, She thought, because the sun was now beaming brightly, strait at her face.  
  
There was a loud pounding at her door and she rolled over, shoving the pillow over her head in protest. Her door wasn't locked, but after the last time someone had entered without permission, Ella had made sure that they would never do it again. The knocking didn't cease until Ella shouted 'COME IN!' with anguish.  
  
The padding of small feet was heard from under the pillow where Ella's head was still lodged, and she knew at once that it was her cunning little sister, coming to bestow her annoying and malicious wrath upon her.  
  
Before she could look to see, the covers were pulled violently off of her, and she at once curled her legs up with the biting cold that came quickly over her. It disappeared at once, as the sun from the open window seized her body with its heat.  
  
"Urghhh,' She moaned, pulling the pillow off of her head and looking angrily into the face of the little girl who was smiling mischievously at her from beneath her curtain of strait blonde hair, standing at the foot of her bed. Her blue eyes twinkled in the sunlight as Ella stared loathingly back at them with her plain, gray and angry ones.  
  
'Grace, why did you wake me up?" She demanded, throwing her pillow back in its place and slowly sitting up in her bed. Ella wasn't in the mood to get out of bed, or wake up, and was thoroughly angry that her sister had woken her up on such an inviting day to sleep in. For this morning was the long awaited first day of summer vacation. The one day that Ella had been looking forward to for months, feeling that summer couldn't come any slower. But it finally arrived, blinking through her window as it did every year, and she had been planning on sleeping in as late as possible. She took a quick glance at the clock and noticed that it was 8:30 in the morning.  
  
Ella groaned and threw her feet harshly off the bed, feeling that the first day of summer wasn't going to be as great as she had imagined. Grace started laughing shrilly and went scampering from her bedroom, cackling happily all the way down the hallway and stairs.  
  
Grumbling indecisively, she shoved her feet into her shoes and stomped from the bedroom, shaking up dust from the edges of her floor, so they appeared like gray snowflakes in the white sunlight of the morning.  
  
The sun seemed to have also woken up the rest of her family, but they were in a much better mood than she was. She walked into the bright kitchen to find the twins, Grace and James sitting innocently at the table along with her father, whom had his nose buried in a book as usual. Her mother was humming happily as she flipped a pancake which was sizzling in a pan.  
  
James looked up at her with a knowing smile as she sat stubbornly into the wicker chair between Grace and her Father. She then suddenly realized and suspected James to be the one who had slyly opened her curtains earlier this morning, judging by the smile and facial expression he had just given her. James and Grace were both twins, and shared the same cunning, sly, and mischievous traits. They were always plotting and planning to pull off some evil little trick or hoax, and were always on the go, searching for any sort of illegal firework or explosive device.  
  
They were almost identical, for being different genders, both with strait, thick blonde hair and blue eyes. Ella knew that they had both gotten them from her mother's side, while she inherited dull gray eyes and black hair from her father.  
  
Usually, she awoke to James playing video games early in the morning, since he had been grounded during the day from them, and he thought that if he got up as early as possible, he'd be able to play to his hearts content. Her parents slept downstairs, and couldn't hear the sounds of the blasting guns and explosions coming from the TV her brother had so secretly placed in his room. She could tell that this morning was one of the mornings he was up blasting away tanks and helicopters on his Nintendo, judging by the glazed over look of his large, round eyes.  
  
'Ella, Do you think you could do me a favor?" asked her father suddenly, setting his book bluntly on the table and looking at her from behind his round spherical glasses. Ella raised an eyebrow.  
  
'Like what?' She asked, hoping more than anything it wasn't something to do with cleaning or washing. Her Dad smiled grimly, knowing exactly what she was thinking.  
  
'Well, I was planning on weeding the garden today, and I was just wondering if you'd like to help me with it,'  
  
Ella groaned, twiddling her fork between her fingers and rolling her eyes towards the window, where she could see the tall, green garden frosted with morning light. It was large, and was full of all sorts of bizarre plants her father had managed to produce over the last year or so.  
  
'I'll pay you,' He added, smiling at her, knowing deep down that this was one of the only ways to get his daughter to help with something.  
  
Ella looked up at him in silence. She didn't want to give in, but money sounded pretty inviting to her. Besides, she was saving up for a telescope and she desperately needed more money. Mowing neighbor's lawns and riding her rusty bike around at 5 in the morning carrying newspapers wasn't cutting it.  
  
'Fine, How much,' She bargained, giving her father a business-like look.  
  
'I'll decide that later,' He said back to her, grabbing his book again and shadowing his face behind it, just as Ella heard the clink of a plate hit the table as Grace handed her pancakes. Ella knew that her father was probably not going to pay her, but she wouldn't let him get away with it that easily.  
  
Looking down at the traditional Saturday morning breakfast, she took the vat of syrup and ladled some on, drenching her pancake in it. Just how she liked it. James stared in disgust from across the table, where he was piling on hunks of butter and strawberry jam onto his pancake. Every member of the family usually had a different eating trait, and soaking her pancakes in loads of syrup was hers.  
  
Ella was just finishing up when she remembered she had promised to call her friend, Maggie, and converse how they were going to fill up their summer with excitement, just as they had planned a few days ago. Knowing Maggie, she was probably still asleep, but that didn't stop her grabbing the phone and calling nonetheless.  
  
Maggie was a taller, brown haired girl that lived down the quiet street from Ella. She had been a friend with her ever since she had moved there, and that was when they were very little. Otherwise, Ella had no other friends. She usually didn't converse well with others, but when she did, it usually didn't last long. Such as earlier in the year, Ella had met a boy named William, or Will. She liked Will, but it was hard for her to stay friendly towards him after he accidentally smashed a clay pot she had accomplished in making the previous summer. It wasn't anything big, but the little girl holds extreme grudges and hardly gives in to forgiving one. Thus, she and Will became almost automatic enemies.  
  
She shoved the phone up to her ear, and spinning the wheel into the right number place using her thumb. Seconds later, her friend was awoken by the shrill ringing of the phone, which she scrambled around her dresser for until she found it and picked it up.  
  
'Hullo?'  
  
'Hi Maggie,' Ella replied, twiddling the phone cord between her fingers and looking at the ceiling. She had just laid herself onto the bed in her room and was now staring blankly but expectantly at the whitewashed ceiling above her.  
  
For a moment, Ella didn't hear anything from the other end, but soon enough the tired and raspy voice filled her ear once again.  
'Whaddyadoin' so early up morning?'  
  
Ella started to giggle silently at the zombie that was her friend.  
  
'Maggie, reach out to your right,'  
  
'Why for?'  
  
'Because, Just do it,'  
  
She could then hear Maggie fumbling around on the dresser that was placed on the right side of her bed, knowing exactly the perfect, but over- used plan and hoax to play on her unsuspecting, dead-tired friend.  
  
'Okay now what?' Came Maggie's confused voice.  
  
'Is there a cup of water?'  
  
'Uh.yeah, why?'  
  
'Pick it up.'  
  
Once again, she heard Maggie fumbling to grasp the cup of water that Ella always saw sitting beside her best friends bed whenever she was over there.  
  
'Now what,' She muttered incoherently.  
  
'Take it, tilt it sideways, but make SURE it's over your head. Then pour it out. Your pouring er.tea for you grandmother.'  
  
'Oi.' Maggie mumbled, as Ella heard the fast and cold sounding, but accomplished splash being poured onto Maggie's head. Ella started laughing in an absurd fashion, rolling over onto her stomach and drowning out her laughter in the pillow as she heard Maggie's angry voice ring into the receiver.  
  
'ELLA! WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME?' But it didn't sound all that angry, more amused than anything. Ella turned back over, feeling a strong feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. Knowing Maggie wasn't going to hold it against her, she felt comfortable laughing.  
  
'I had to wake you up,' She replied with a suppressed giggle that made her eyes water to hold it in. She heard Maggie sigh.  
  
'I was awake, and you knew that.you just.never mind.' She mumbled back, Ella knowing that she still didn't have any idea what was really going on around her, besides the fact that she had just barely dumped a huge glass of water over her head.  
  
'I'm getting better at provoking you, aren't I,' Ella laughed again, squeezing her thigh, where a mosquito had just landed, making it pop from too much blood intake. Quickly, she wiped the splattered insect bug's blood off her leg and listened to what Maggie had to say.  
  
'So, what do you want to do today,' Yawned Maggie, clearly shoving aside the fact that she had been so brutally awakened. Ella had just decided that since she was woken up early on the first day of summer, that she would spread her remorse to more unsuspecting victims, such as Maggie.  
  
'I don't know. I heard that one girl at school talking about a great place to find lizards. You know, just down by the river. We should probably get there before she gets all the fat ones before we do. I mean, we really need the bigger ones for the color dying experiment, wouldn't you say?' She rambled on; her eyes squinted in a business like manner.  
  
Since their science fair project from months previous, Ella and Maggie had been doing a number of bizarre and almost pointless experiments on small creatures, trying to dye them different colors. You must understand, they are both 11 years old and don't know that creatures cannot be dyed by simple kitchen dye. But all the same, they didn't give up, even if they haven't successfully gotten the lizards to change colors.  
  
'Yeah, I heard about that place too,' Maggie replied. Ella could sense her smiling as well and kept listening. 'It was that one Eloise girl, remember? The one with the larger ears? Yeah. Well, I heard she's a killer lizard catcher from what Will has let me in on.'  
  
Ella shuddered at Will's name but shrugged it off quickly so Maggie wouldn't sense a weak spot where Will was concerned. Ella glanced lovingly at the cracked pieces of the clay pot sitting on her window ledge, containing a few balls of lint and a bunch of dust it had collected, showing how long she could, and had always held grudges.  
  
Then, in the back of her mind, the thought of weeding twined through her thoughts, causing all of the lizard ideas to fly strait out the window. She suddenly let out an exasperated sigh.  
  
'Maggie, I just remembered. I've got weeding to do today,' She sighed through the receiver, rolling her eyes once again and staring out into the humid sky. She could see the heat itself rippling across the ground and the sun showing blurrily through the small amounts of clouds sprayed through out the sky as if an airbrush had done it so very gently and gracefully.  
'Weeding? Why? Didn't you just weed LAST week?' Maggie said incredulously, clearly angered by what Ella had just told her.  
  
'Yeah, sorry, but you'll have to catch the lizards by yourself today. But I'm sure I'll be able to come over or something later.' She added the last part with a hint of hopefulness in her voice, knowing almost for sure that she could chance to sneak away later that day, after the slaving work of ridding the garden of it's so called viruses.  
  
Ella and Maggie said they're stalled goodbye's, and she once again headed out of the wooden doorway, into the now very hot hallway. Ella wondered why in the world the air conditioning wasn't on, but just remembered that it had been removed to save money for a new washing machine. Her parents were always doing bizarre things with money. They had a perfectly nice and well-working washing machine, but for some odd and unknown reason, her mother had decided to buy a new one, which resulted in the air conditioning being the first thing to throw out. The old washing machine was now placed sloppily in the basement, where it was collecting large amounts of spider webs and smaller insects that would get themselves and their small brains caught within the sticky webs.  
  
Hearing the ringing voice of her father coming up the stairwell, she hurried quicker than before to the stairs, and looking down them, she spotted her garden-equipped father waiting at the bottom, rolling back on his heals and whistling.  
  
'Coming,' She yelled back, unnecessarily loud. She started bounding down the stairs, catching speed and going faster down stairs than you would ever see someone do. It almost seemed unnatural at the speed she took to the stairs, but after years and years of running down that staircase, one sort of builds up a certain running-down-stairs talent.  
  
Hitting the wall hardly at the bottom, Ella stopped herself by accidentally tripping stupidly over her own shoe and rolling down the landing and stopping, out of breath at her father's almost amused looking face.  
  
'Ella, what in the world was that?' He chuckled, looking down at his red-faced daughter with glee. He and the rest of the family had learned to get used to this oblivious behavior of their daughter, since she was always banging into cupboards, or missing doorways, which resulted in her whacking halfway into the wall on her way through the door she had attempted to outsmart.  
  
She was definitely an intelligent girl, but she wasn't really in the mindset she needed to be in. Her brain was more geared toward art, which usually meant that she was off in some other world with-in her creative mind, thinking of some new thing to draw, or act out, or sing. But never had she enjoyed any sort of mathematical strain or serious and hard-core scientific activity. Besides the dying of the lizards of course.  
  
She grabbed the stair rail and hoisted herself up quickly; ready to defend her clumsiness against what her father had to say about it. But nothing came out of his mouth save another small chuckle, followed by the shaking of his head. She sighed, feeling like an idiot and followed his heavy footsteps across the orange shag carpet that was laid out in the living room, and to the back door, which was located in the kitchen. A towering sliding glass door, foreboding, and challenging her to what it led to outside.  
  
Once they emerged into the burning hot back porch, she was reconsidering even going outside to help in the garden. She spotted the large square of brilliantly colored flowers, and even they looked miserable, the sun drying up all the dew that they had collected on their petals and leaves during the night. The dirt was crackled and breaking under the heat of the sun, and even the trees looked miserable.  
  
Those were just the flowers and trees, but there was also Corn, Cantaloupe, and many more fruits and vegetables, waiting for her hands to come and pull out the weeds.  
  
"Okay, your going to do the Corn, got it? Just pull out anything that doesn't look like corn. It shouldn't be too hard" Her dad announced, as if confirming her fate. He was pointing to the 5-foot tall corn, which they had successfully grown for the first time, standing tall and husky just yards away from the girl and her father.  
  
Ella nodded bluntly, taking the floral garden gloves that her Dad held out for her, and the small metal trowel. She took one last look at the cool, air conditioned house and then turned her black haired head back to the uninviting garden. Having this color hair was worse by far, since heat so easily is attracted to the color black, but she was lucky it wasn't too long. Having it just barely past her ears, she felt lucky to now have it sweltering down her back. She watched her father go and start to weed the poppies, which looked a whole lot easier than the corn. Sighing, she trudged over to the east side of the garden, and stood at the edge of one of the rows of corn, which to her looked more like traps of boiling hot death, wanting to catch her hair in their sticky stalks and leaves and get the insects that lived in them all in the folds of her clothing and shoes.  
  
She knelt down and stubbornly shoved the garden gloves onto her hands and bowed her head, looking closely at the small plants that were growing at the feet of the corn like little infections. She decided it was a lot easier just to rip the lot of them out of the ground instead of inspecting them to see if they were weeds or not. Weeds are weeds, and she was sure that her father wouldn't care too much if she ripped out something that wasn't.  
  
The first one was pretty hard, but would have been easier if the ground wasn't so crackly and hard from the heat of the newly risen sun. She hit the cracked and weary dirt with the trowel and got a whole load out with-in 30 minutes, and loosened most of the dirt up at the same time.  
  
He'll probably make me water them all after this She thought, working on another stubborn weed, and wondering when she'll ever be able to go back inside and talk to Maggie.  
  
An hour later, she had gotten the whole corn patch done, and looking with pride on her work, she examined it. Her father was just finishing up the rest of the garden, which was 4 times bigger than the small square of corn. That made her feel a little more discouraged, but she didn't care, so long as it was done. She dusted off her hands in satisfaction and turned around, throwing the gloves happily onto the ground, along with the trowel, glad that the rest of her day was going to be somewhat better than this had been.  
  
"Dad! I'm finished!" She called to the bent back of her dad, who was watering the flowers that he had just so easily weeded.  
  
"Oh, good! Do you mind watering them?"  
  
She sighed and nodded, for she minded a whole lot, though he couldn't see it. Then, noticing that he was using the watering can, she ran over to the battered and green hose and turned it on, dragging it through the humid air and over to the very thirsty corn.  
  
I hope I'm not just watering the weeds or something.  
  
She stuck her thumb over the opening in the hose, creating a shower that sprinkled over the whole part of the garden. Watching the rainbow in the water had always been fascinating to her, because whenever she seemed to turn on the hose, she was automatically mesmerized by the dancing colors swimming in the spray of the hose.  
  
She must have not been paying much attention at all this time, because there was something very odd and incredibly peculiar that she wasn't seeing at that moment. But when she looked down at the wet ground of the corn, she almost hopped out of her own clothes at what she had just laid her eyes on.  
  
All of the weeds that she had just pulled were back. Their thick green stems protruding from her just freshly weeded garden, and taller than ever. She stood with fear and amazement at the growing weeds. For they were still growing.  
  
"What?!" She gasped, throwing the hose behind her and watching with complete disturbed amazement as the weeds grew taller, almost as tall as the corn itself, and so much taller than herself.  
  
She couldn't help but leap back, her eyes wide open. She had no idea what on the face of the planet was going on, but many things passed her mind. At first, she thought that it was all an illusion, due to the extreme heat and being out in it for so long. But after she touched one of the weeds, she had confirmation that it was indeed quite real. Her mind was racing with what was going on.  
  
Is this some kind of joke? She wondered, still watching the weeds grow, now almost reaching the tree that was spread out to the right of her and the weeds. Luckily, her Dad was still turned around, hit back facing her, and not watching anything she was doing, and still suspecting that she was watering the corn and it's mutant weeds.  
  
"Ella! Are you done over there?" Came his muffled voice from. She spun around and saw him still hunched over, but this time over by the hose, just about to turn it off. He didn't wait for her to answer, just assuming that she was finished, he twisted the handle of the hose and the water stopped abruptly. So did the weeds. In fact, they were shrinking back down into the moist soil from where they came from. Down with the water. Ella did another frightened jump backward a few feet and let out a small gasp.  
  
She dropped her hands to her thighs and stood, in utter and complete astonishment at what had just happened, and not knowing what to do about it, only being eleven, and not understanding things as easy as other people.  
  
The dirt was now nothing but wet, with a bunch of ordinary, non-mutant corn growing out of it. Nothing Unusual. Nothing Suspicious. There might have even been FEWER weeds now.  
  
She was still staring in amazement at the now ordinary soil just as her Dad came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. She jumped and turned around to see a smile on his face, and a look of approval.  
  
"Well done! Couldn't have done a better job myself!" He praised her, nodding his head and looking with satisfaction over the empty corn patch, not knowing what his daughter had just witnessed. 


End file.
